


battle scars

by inkspl0tches



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Fluff, IWTB, the most disgustingly fluffy fluff to ever be written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 19:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5139776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkspl0tches/pseuds/inkspl0tches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he'll probably live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	battle scars

she’s hummed the alphabet while brushing her teeth since she was old enough to (sort of) hold a tune. she thinks that childhood ritual might have been intended for washing hands, but she and melissa used to bare their teeth in the bathroom mirror and mumble their abcs at each other. somehow it stuck. mulder’s shout from the kitchen interrupts her at h. 

it’s a cry of pain and then her name, curving up at the end to become a near pitiful whine. she’s out of the bathroom and taking the stairs two at a time before he even gets past the the first syllable. she’s never been the creative one, in her family or her marriage, but her mind conjures impressive images of sniper bullets through windows and sudden cardiac arrest. she’s breathless by the time her feet hit the cool tile of the kitchen. 

his name is on her lips as he turns to her, one hand covering half his face. he fixes her with one puppy dog eye and pouts, points an accusatory finger at the cabinet where she keeps the glasses. it’s eye level, (because who puts glasses on the top shelf, mulder. how do you expect me to reach?) and he looks as though he’s been terribly wronged. 

it’s clearly nothing fatal, nothing even nearing a mortal wound, but she’s been classically conditioned and primed for disaster. she’s still not convinced she’s not about to lose him until he finally speaks. “that cabinet. that cabinet maimed me, scully.”

she presses a hand to her lips to tug down her smile and fails. “oh, mulder,” she sputters, and it turns from a giggle into a full laugh that threatens to ruin her bedside manner for all eternity. 

“don’t laugh. you’re a doctor.” he rubs at his forehead and she can see a smear of copper along his hairline. he raises his hand helplessly. “fix me.” 

her amusement softens and melts into something sweeter than she’d care to admit. when she speaks again it’s soft and gentle; it’s the voice she saves for half-awake sunday mornings when he brings her coffee and she slips and says she loves him. it’s the voice he thinks she might have used with their son. it’s a voice he thinks he can remember from one night, her hand moving over the crib in the corner. her words were nonsense and bittersweet, blurred into near melody in his recollection. 

“come here,” she says, running her hand along his arm as she pulls herself up onto the edge of the counter and faces him at his level. he stands between her knees as she flips on the light above the oven to inspect his injury. she tugs his hand away from where he’s clamped it to his forehead and squeezes it gently between her fingers before focusing her attention on the angry cut above his right eyebrow. 

“ouch,” he says, flinching as her cool fingers brush over the abrasion. 

he waits for her to admonish him for moving, but instead she mimics his melodramatic pout. crimping her delicate mouth in an imitation of his wounded expression. “oh, honey,” she sighs. “what did that cabinet do to you?” 

she skates over the endearment that in other circumstances she would have cloaked in irony and drenched in sarcasm. the edges of her words are tender now, sanded down to pure affection and maybe something like relief. he wonders if he’d scared her. he catches her throw a look to the cabinet and suddenly fears her sharp retaliation. she’d gone to africa for him, threatened lives and lied, searched back woods and government facilities and ghost ships. she’d saved his world a hundred times over. the worn wood of the cabinet would never hold up under her unrelenting fury, her calculated precision in cutting out any threat to her partner. 

he fusses under her hands as she presses the end of a kitchen towel against his forehead. she taps his arm without giving instruction, and he reaches above her head and to the left to grab the neosporin from the shelf above the oven. she’d once sliced the side of her hand while cutting vegetables and then insisted they kept a makeshift first aid kit in their kitchen. he had to admit it came in handy. 

“what were you doing down here?” she asks. he knows she’s distracting him from the antiseptic sting. she’s a damn good doctor, he thinks fondly. 

“getting a glass of water.” 

“mm,” she hums and smoothes a bandaid over the side of his forehead. 

“thank you,” he says too sincerely and she smiles sideways, dropping her hands from his forehead to his cheeks and looking at him with such raw affection that his chest tightens. 

“well,” she says after a moment, composing herself and pressing a stamp of a kiss to his temple that offsets her cool tone. “you’ll live.” 

“that’s a relief.” 

“yeah,” she says, running her fingers through his hair. her eyes are bright and far. he wonders if she sees fresh snow on fresh graves and scars on cheeks the way he sees empty trunks and candlelit bathrooms. “it is.” 

“you did it,” he tells her as he helps her slide off the counter. 

“what’s that?” 

“saved the world. again.” 

she laughs, a low intimate sound that he likes to believe is just for him. “anytime,” she says and kisses him. 

she tastes like mint and sleep and she wraps an arm around his waist like a commanding officer helping her wounded soldier off the battlefield. they live to fight another day.


End file.
